There’s no doubt that President Trump likes the idea of declaring a national emergency in the abstract. It’s a tool that’s specifically designed to sweep away the cumbersome process of reaching consensus on tricky political issues, given to a president to rapidly address crises that threaten the United States. National emergency declarations give Trump the ability to serve less as a one-of-three-branches-of-government president and more as CEO of America Inc., a role in which he’s much more comfortable.
But if Trump issues a national emergency declaration to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) suggested he would on Thursday, Trump would be using that power in a way that it has never really been used before. He would also be taking an action that polls have repeatedly shown runs against the will of the American public. CONT.
Philip Bump, Washington Post